Justice Kartar Singh Campbellpuri

Kartar Singh Campbellpuri, also spelt Campbelpuri, was a retired judge of the PEPSU High Court. Gurmit Singh calls him the only Sikh member of the inquiry the Swatantra Party set up in 1960 into the Punjab Government's handling of the Akali agitation for Punjabi Suba, and Gurmit Singh reproduces his note of dissent on the use of gurdwaras for politics.

During the morcha of 1960 to 1961 the Swatantra Party appointed a commission of enquiry of four: K.M. Munshi, N.C. Chatterjee, N.C. Aggarwala and Kartar Singh Campbellpuri. Gurmit Singh writes that the commission reported unanimously that the measures the Punjab Government had adopted against the Akali agitation were unduly harsh, but also asserted that using the gurdwaras as bases of agitation was unjustified and lent a communal colour to the demand for Punjabi Suba. The only Sikh member dissented on two of the findings.

His note of dissent.

• On gurdwaras: he wrote that Sikhism is a pragmatic and congregational religion and that almost all the historical gurdwaras are surrounded by politics. He pointed out that gurdwara pulpits were used for political propaganda under the Congress itself in British days. He did not approve of treating gurdwaras as permanent religio-political institutions, as a monograph by Gurnam Singh, a retired High Court judge, had argued, but said that at critical times Sikhs may peacefully raise cultural and political questions from the gurdwara precincts.
• On the law: because the agitation was about Punjabi, a language the Constitution recognises, he held that it fell under Article 29, which protects a group's right to conserve its own language, script or culture. It was therefore a cultural agitation, and using gurdwaras for it could not be called inappropriate, though violence could not be preached there. He noted that no instance had been cited of any Hindu mishandled by a Sikh during four months of agitation, and wrote that jailing thousands of Sikhs on suspicion of a breach of the peace rode roughshod over the rule of law.
• On the demand: he could not subscribe to the finding that Punjab's people felt the demand was not purely linguistic. He blamed confused thinking for the impression, said the Akalis were also responsible, and wrote that it was unintelligible and preposterous to think a separate state could be carved out within the Indian federal polity. He pointed to the resolution of the All India Sikh Convention of 22 May 1960, which asked for a Punjabi-speaking State within India.

What he is remembered for. He is remembered for this note, which Gurmit Singh prints as an appendix to his history.